Yellowstone grizzly killed by rangers after learning to open trash cans
Adult bears cannot be relocated, so this 800-pound adult male had to be euthanized to protect the public, rangers said.
An adult grizzly bear that figured out how to flip 800-pound garbage Dumpsters and other trash cans to find food inside has been euthanized by Yellowstone National Park rangers.
Rangers said the 11-year-old male bear posed a safety risk to park visitors and other bears after overturning trash containers in the Old Faithful area of the park. Rangers very rarely have to take such drastic action, and said this was the first time since 2017 they’d had to trap and kill a grizzly for safety reasons.
“The decision to kill the bear was made to ensure public safety and reduce the chances of other bears becoming habituated to human food,” rangers said in a statement.
Wildlife experts typically use non-lethal methods for keeping grizzlies and other wildlife away from people and trash, including noisemakers or even pepper spray. Trapping and killing a bear like this is considered a last resort, and while cubs can sometimes be moved or rehomed at a zoo or sanctuary, an adult male like this one was not a good candidate, rangers said.
Like many places in the West where bears live, Yellowstone requires the use of bear-resistant trash containers. But those devices are not always 100% effective, rangers said. The bear was euthanized May 14.
“It’s unfortunate that this bear began regularly seeking out garbage and was able to defeat the park’s bear-resistant infrastructure,” Yellowstone bear management biologist Kerry Gunther said in a statement. “We go to great lengths to protect bears and prevent them from becoming conditioned to human food. But occasionally, a bear outsmarts us or overcomes our defenses. When that happens, we sometimes have to remove the bear from the population to protect visitors and property.”
Tourists crashing their cars into bears are among the leading cause of non-natural bear deaths in national parks, according to the National Park Service, one of the reasons rangers so strictly enforce speed limits within park boundaries.